2010 Paintball X3 Magazine Article

Early in the morning on Saturday, November 6, a
steady stream of headlights pulled into the parking lot of Fox 4 Paintball in Upton, Massachusetts.
As the sun rose, brightening a thick cloud cover
with intermittent sprinkles of rain, one couldn’t
help but be reminded of the dark rainy night two
weeks before when tragedy struck a mere thirty
miles to the northeast that deeply saddened two
college communities and families.
school for our NCPA team. I remember spending
all night at his fraternity planning for an upcoming tournament because he wanted our team to
play as best we could. His positive attitude was
infectious,” said Daniel Sullivan, an RPI alum and
former club president. During his sophomore
year, Stimson transferred to Boston University
and started a paintball club there. BU played
their first tournament in 2009. Stimson graduated this past May from the BU school of manageJoshua Stimson, originally from North Haverhill, ment and began work for Accenture in Boston.
New Hampshire, entered as a freshman at In the early morning of October 24, a mere five
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New months after graduation, Stimson was struck by
York in 2006 and revived the previously dor- an MBTA Green Line trolley. He was pronounced
mant paintball club at RPI. “As we reinvigorated dead at the scene. "When one team loses somethe program at RPI his love for playing one, the entire paintball community feels that
paintball was clear; he put an incredi- loss. We are all a family in this sport, we have
ble amount of effort into legitimizing to help each other out. The Hartford Hawks are
our club and gaining support from the sorry to hear about this, and will do anything to
On the heels of the tragedy, the nine teams present engaged in spirited battles throughout,
but very quickly Temple University emerged as
dominant throughout the prelims, going 4-0
while not losing a single point in the Race-to-2
format. Southern Connecticut State University
went 3-1 through prelims to earn the number
two seed, while four teams: Norwich University,
the University of Hartford, Rochester Institute of
Technology, and Daniel Webster College. Based
on elapsed time, Norwich and Hartford earned
the third and fourth seeds, respectively. Norwich,
out of Northfield, Vermont, made the semis in
the club’s first ever NCPA tournament.
In the semis, the University of Hartford came
alive and upset the number one seeded Temple
team two games to zero, with the last game
coming down to a one-on-one. In the other semifinal match, Southern Connecticut
State University defeated Norwich two games
to zero to set up an all Connecticut final.
Hartford, coming off the momentum from defeating Temple, simply could not be stopped and defeated Southern Connecticut two games to zero
to claim the overall tournament win, the first in
club history. Temple defeated Norwich to claim
third place. "Our team has been working really
hard all season and this victory is the pinnacle of
our existence as a club. We came into this event
hungry for a win after our second place showing
earlier this year and wanted to prove that we can
consistently do well in the NEIC. We had an awesome roster for this event and everyone played
their hearts out. It was a true team effort and I'm
just happy to have been a part of Hartford's first
ever NCPA win,” replied senior Joe Melanson.
The NEIC will host its third event of the season
in February of 2011 at a location yet to be determined. Given the excitement generated during
the first two tournaments, the third event promises to be no different.